On the Way June 7, 2011

She likes the way the night feels,
the way the black air lifts her trench coat
and shows more of her pale legs that glide like silk.
The night clings to her like dress she wears,
short, made of Lycra but not trashy like the rhinestone and
ribbon-clad she sees strutting corners, those streetlight islands
of concrete. She is going to where all the dry mouthed lovers and liars are,
their visible breath turning with the neon bulbs blue, green, red, yellow
—then nothing, the flickering bar sign promising paradise for the forsaken.
She just keeps walking, her beaten up black pumps so insistent that
they leave grooves in the cracked pavement, the click-clack drowning out
the laughter of lost souls, the hollow sound finding space somewhere between
her double-pierced ears and squatting there.
Derelict-delightful like the flies that dance around the dumpster,
to Tommy’s Bar, that is where she is headed.
He will be waiting for her in the last booth, their booth.
Holding him close, their lips will touch like the familiar red vinyl booth pressed
against her thighs. She will ignore the sharp pleats of his suit’s slacks, feeling
the ring in his right breast pocket of his ironed white shirt.
She will not think about the love she gives by the hour,
the black and white clock on the wall ticking and taunting.

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